The Mouse goes mobile

The Disney Corporation is big. They own movie studios and television networks. They've got eleven theme parks scattered around the world as well as a cruise line and thirty-five resort hotels. They've got more stores than Carter's got pills. All that is to be expected from a company with intellectual property that spans from Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck to Baby Einstein. Did you know, however, that they also offer mobile phone service?

Yep, Disney Mobile offers cell phone service aimed directly at families. As odd as it sounds, they have put together a set of features that sounds pretty good, especially for those parents who want control of their kids' phone usage. Parents can control the time of day and days of the week when the phone can be used and can restrict the phone from calling specific numbers. Parents can also find out where their kids' phones are online using GPS technology. This could be handy in making sure that Billy really is spending the night at Joey's house -- at least until Billy figures out he can just send his phone home with Joey while he goes out and parties. The monthly airtime that comes with each plan can be allocated to each member of the family and parents can get alerts when the kids use up all their time for voice calls and all their picture or text messages.

The selection of phones is extremely limited -- they offer only two phones -- and the plans are a bit more expensive than what we can get locally, but if you have kids old enough for a phone and you want the added control and monitoring features that Disney offers, it might be something to consider. Would you go for it? Do these features seem worthwhile to you?

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Those features are genius! But hopefully by the time my kids are old enough for their own phones, some of the other cellular companies will offer similar services. I think it's only a matter of time before Cingular, et.al will hop the GPS and parent control bandwagon. They would be wise to do so.